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Amanda N. Reich, et al. v. City of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, No. 18-6296 · judgment December 19, 2019

Certiorari denied · October 5, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 11% cert probability (95% interval 7%–16%)

Before the decision, about 2.6× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for counsel who has won certiorari before, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.

Questions presented

In this Section 1983 police-shooting case, the district court struck the sworn affidavit of petitioner Amanda Reich from the summary judgment record, and then used the absence of that affidavit to conclude that there was no genuine dispute of fact material to respondents’ claim of qualified immunity for shooting and killing petitioner’s mentally ill fiancé. The questions presented are:

  1. Whether the Sixth Circuit’s extreme approach to the “sham-affidavit” rule should be overturned in favor of the more flexible standards prevailing in other circuits.

  2. Whether the Court should recalibrate or reverse the doctrine of qualified immunity.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Paul Whitfield Hughes
McDermott Will & Emery

For respondent
Jason B. Bell
Bell, Hess & Van Zant, PLC

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Oct 05 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Sep 02 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/29/2020.
  3. Sep 01 2020
    Reply of petitioners Amanda Reich, et al. filed. (Distributed)
  4. Aug 14 2020
    Brief of respondents City of Elizabethtown, et al. in opposition filed.
  5. Jun 22 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 17, 2020)